In the first grade I colored outside the lines with all the colors I saw in the apple my teacher set before me, were shiny red striped with yellow, orange and even lime green. I built up the waxy look, coloring heavily. My classmates thought my apple was ugly because I did not fill in a simple even red with green stem and leaf, but I knew it was beautiful and perfect, and my teacher did too. I later won my first blue ribbon for a still life she had set up for the class.
I knew I was an Artist. My mom was an artist, too.
And I knew that when I grew up, I would become an art teacher.
But I also loved science. My dad was a NASA engineer. So when it came time to leave behind my k-12 art awards, I considered architecture, however, the late 1970s all-male atmosphere in the career was something I later chose to avoid. I remembered my young calling as an art teacher and enrolled for Art Education at Kent State.
But the art professors I admired convinced me no serious artist would pursue a K-12 teaching path. I (foolishly?) listened and pursued fine art— drawing like the masters and painting large oil canvases from the model, studying sculpture, printmaking and design and color in an atelier setting.
"Marci" painted my Senior year, with some help on her hand by George Danhires
Later, I added a Masters degree in Educational Media.
Marriage soon followed and the brushes were laid aside, because without constant reinforcement the loose yet accurate representational style I had achieved with hours of studio time atrophied. Soon, drawing accurately became less instantaneous. With added full time work in the local medical college art department, my drawing opportunities became limited.
Mothering followed, and then a career as a desk top publisher and the superintendent of my own home school. Art played a minor part, but I loved designing informative print and web pieces as a freelance graphic designer and teaching the kids, putting that M.Ed to good use.
Seven years caregiving came on the heels of home schooling, and with that stress came the need for release, and the realization that a full time graphic design career outside the home was neither possible nor desirable. My moment of truth came in the form of a journal entry:
"What would I be working FOR? A new car? I would rather drive a rust bucket and paint!"
I began to paint again, taking classes from a nearby art center bristling with talented instructors in watercolors. After painting a compulsory lighthouse with a gradient blend, I took a large flat brush and loosely rendered a rocky shoal and joyfully examined the results and exclaimed "I am using my degree!"
... at last! I became "an Artist" once again.
Since then, I have worked alongside a tribe of other classically trained professional artists, while developing my own artistic style. The occasional sale and awards have kept me going, and now opportunities are opening for me to become the teacher I dreamed of, with students of my own.
This has been my goal all along, to become better and better as an artist, and then pass on my increasing wisdom as I grow more experienced.
The atelier system of training was the best learning environment in Europe up to WWI. "Master artists have taught their students for over 500 years. Thousands of accomplished artists were trained by atelier studios to paint in dozens of styles on a variety of subjects. They learned technique and beauty by studying paintings and sculptures of the past to build their own artistic vision.
"My Tribe" (2005) direct watercolor painting from the model every Friday Morning
"Discipline, concentration, seeing things in context, creative thinking, seeing things in proportion and spatial relationships and problem-solving abilities are all aspect of classical art training."(1) A painting is a combination of the right shape, the right size, in the right place which is the right value and chroma, over and over again.
Over time, my heart has yearned to work more completely in response to my "creative call" in a visual dance with the Creator as partner. When the opportunity arises and a student wishes to embrace that transcendent combination of faith and art, I am ready to lend encouragement to their individual art spirit journey.
Robert Henri, in The Art Sprit defines that process:
"There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but … it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it. It is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of all art." (2)
"Catching the Far Light" en plein air watercolor 2006
My former blogs and Alabaster Jar https://alabaster.substack.com/ are my writing outlet, an extension of my studio and my journal. In the gospels, Mary breaks an alabaster jar and anoints Jesus just before his crucifixion. His disciples murmered it was a waste of money, but her act symbolizes my own sacrificial gift of perception and generative flow despite the utlitarian expectations of most. Through the blog, I offer to my Creator my art, commentary and poetry sharing words that point us forward to the restoration of all things. This is now where my blogging energy is spent.
"When the Art Spirit is alive in any person, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding.
There seem to be moments of revelation. We may call it a passage into another dimension than the ordinary. If one could but record the vision of these moments by some sort of sign! It was in this hope that the arts were invented, Signposts to what may be. Signposts toward greater knowledge." — Robert Henri (2)
1 "The Atelier System of Training: A Comprehensive Guide to Classical Art" Huckleberry Fine Art
2 Robert Henri, The Art Spirit
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